‘Sense and Sensibility’ Review: Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles Bring Fresh Feeling to Austen

Georgia Oakley’s adaptation pairs stirring romance with an intimate portrait of sisterhood, finding fresh life in a familiar story.

By Ainsley Mura

Adapting Jane Austen for the screen means entering a crowded field of formidable predecessors. Director Georgia Oakley proves equal to the challenge with Sense and Sensibility, an assured interpretation that captures the exhilaration of first love while giving sisterhood its emotional due.

Following their father’s death, the Dashwood sisters — Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) — lose the security of their comfortable Sussex home. Their half-brother John (Tom Brooke), encouraged by his meddlesome wife Fanny (Stacy Martin), does little to safeguard their future. The sisters and their mother relocate to a modest Devon cottage, where reduced circumstances bring new acquaintances and romantic complications.

Australian screenwriter Diana Reid preserves the wit of Austen’s 1811 novel, finding moments of cheeky humour within its social manoeuvring. But the screenplay’s greatest strength is its understanding of sisterhood: the affection, frustration and unspoken loyalties that bind women whose temperaments could hardly be more different.

Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles make that relationship feel lived-in. Their performances balance period restraint with an emotional immediacy that gives the sisters’ private exchanges the intimacy of a contemporary drama. Elinor’s composure and Marianne’s impulsiveness emerge as different ways of navigating the same uncertain world.

Cinematographer Arnaud Potier gives those contrasts a striking visual expression. Overgrown woodland, crashing waves and rolling hills establish a connection between Marianne’s restless disposition and the landscape around her. These images give her emotional turbulence room to breathe.

Creed-Miles embraces Marianne’s headstrong youthfulness as she follows her heart towards the dashing, elusive Willoughby (Frank Dillane). Her openness stands in sharp contrast to Elinor’s reserve, making both the thrill and the danger of her romantic convictions palpable.

As Elinor, Edgar-Jones finds yearning beneath a carefully maintained surface. Restrained longing has become familiar territory for the actor, but she continues to find nuance within it. Opposite George MacKay as Fanny’s brother Edward, she establishes an affecting chemistry from their earliest encounters in the Dashwoods’ Sussex home. Glances and hesitant exchanges carry the weight of feelings neither can comfortably express.

Oakley’s achievement is to give both romances space without allowing either to eclipse the relationship between the sisters. Their contrasting personalities never become a reason to simplify them. Elinor’s restraint carries its own emotional cost; Marianne’s openness contains more than youthful folly.

Any new Sense and Sensibility inevitably invites comparison with the beloved 1995 film, starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. But Austen’s enduring appeal has always allowed room for another interpretation, another shift in emphasis, another generation of performers.

Oakley makes a persuasive case for returning to this story. Beneath the courtship rituals and questions of inheritance, her film finds women learning how to live with disappointment, recognise affection and understand one another. The romances provide the longing; the sisters give the film its heart.